


The Spring Thaw

by Eliizabethx



Series: Once Upon A Descendant [2]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Families of Choice, Family Bonding, Family Fluff, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Foster Care, Gen, Light Angst, POV Alternating, Pre-Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-03
Updated: 2020-09-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:28:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26278669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eliizabethx/pseuds/Eliizabethx
Summary: A collection of drabbles about Emma's time with Ingrid, and the close bond they form.
Relationships: Snow Queen | Ingrid | Sarah Fisher & Emma Swan
Series: Once Upon A Descendant [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1884943
Comments: 4
Kudos: 16





	1. Emma Meets Ingrid

She had _just_ sat her things down in the entryway, turning to watch her newest social worker talking to the woman that ran the group home, and suddenly a redheaded boy is darting over to her bag and pulling out her video camera.

“Hey!” She calls, a jolt of alarm going through her as he carelessly flips open the little screen.

“Look what the new girl brought!” He announces loudly, sauntering into what seemed to be an office or study with all the obnoxious confidence of a teenage bully.

She sees his smirking freckled face on the screen and catches a flash of her own arms as she tries to reach out and snatch it back from him.

“Give it back, Kevin.” A firm voice says behind them, sounding disappointed. They both turn to see the woman, ‘Ingrid’ she thinks her social worker introduced her as, staring reproachfully at the boy. “The camera is _Emma’s_ , not yours.”

She retreats back to the woman’s side when she holds out an arm to her, willing to suck up for the moment if it means getting back her camera. The woman settles a hand lightly on the back of her shoulder, intended as a comforting touch she’s sure, but which has Emma drawing into herself reflexively.

“We respect each other’s property here,” Ingrid assures her. Emma nods agreeably and Ingrid walks over to the boy, _Kevin_ , with a hand outstretched expectantly.

He hands it to her with a sigh, rolling his eyes when she turns away.

“Sorry, _Emma_ ,” he says automatically, and clearly insincerely, although she’s mildly surprised she got even a _fake_ apology without him being prompted first.

Clearly her camera isn’t his first incident.

Ingrid gives him a _look_ , apparently recognizing the false apology as well, and then waves him off. He’s quick to retreat upstairs.

“Here.” She eagerly takes her camera back, turning it off before the battery dies, and manages to ignore the frustration when she realizes she now has Kevin’s stupid face on her tape.

“Thanks,” she says quietly, meeting the woman’s eyes briefly before she turns back to her things, carefully packing her camera away again.

“Of course,” Ingrid says, smiling at her warmly when she turns back around. “I was hoping to give you a better first impression than that, I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine, not like it’s the first time.” She brushes it off, a little unsure of what to do with the attention she’s getting. In her experience people that run group homes fall into two categories; tired, and dismissive.

So far Ingrid doesn’t seem like either.

“Come on,” she says, giving Emma another smile. “I’ll show you your room.”

She’s led upstairs and down a hall, with Ingrid telling her about the house as they go.

“You’re the oldest girl in the house right now, so you’ll have the room all to yourself for a while,” she says, opening a door at the end of the hall. “I’ve only ever had six kids in the house at a time. Right now there are two boys around your age, including Kevin who you’ve already met, and two younger girls.”

She nods along, looking around the room disinterestedly.

“Nico is turning eighteen next month though,” Ingrid says idly, turning to look down the hall with an indulgent smile when they hear a loud peel of laughter from the room she’d said was for the younger kids. “So he’ll be off soon.”

“State’s kicking him out huh?” She asks, not really caring but sensing the woman’s trying to ‘connect’.

“Oh, no,” Ingrid says, looking surprised. “No, this _will_ be his last home, but it’s because he’ll be moving for college in a few months.”

“Oh,” she says, a little surprised. “Um, that’s cool.”

Ingrid watches her with an expression that Emma thinks is a little sad, before giving her a smaller smile. “I’ll let you be while you get settled. The kitchen is downstairs if you’re hungry, and if you’re worried about Kevin barging in and making a nuisance of himself feel free to lock the door.”

“Really?”

“Yes,” Ingrid says kindly. “In this house, we also respect each other’s space, and everyone knows to knock if they need something. If you need anything just call, alright?”

“Okay.”

Ingrid leaves with a final soft smile, and Emma has to admit to herself that the place doesn't seem too bad.

Which means it's definitely too good to be true.


	2. Emma Tries to Run Away

“When I was younger I did the same thing,” Ingrid says quietly, swallowing against the emotions that try to rise up when she remembers her old life.

Emma’s expression goes through a few different emotions before settling on cautiously curious.

“You ran away?” She sounds surprised, and guarded.

“I tried to,” Ingrid says, smiling self-deprecatingly. “Some people in my life, they intervened. Do you want to know why?”

“Does it matter?”

“It did to me,” she says. “They stopped me because they cared about me.”

“Good for you,” Emma mutters.

“Good for you too,” she corrects gently. “Because now that you’re living under my roof, I’m going to care for you, the way they cared for me.”

The teen looks conflicted again, but her expression quickly closes off with distrust.

“I already have someone that cares about me,” she says firmly. “So don’t worry about it.”

“Your brother?” Ingrid asks, watching Emma’s eyes dart between her and the door. “Your social worker told me about him. I know he’s been trying to get custody of you.”

“So?” She asks harshly, clearly defensive of him.

Ingrid had waited so long to find another sister, to find someone that would understand, and now here she was - Emma Swan, her happy ending. She had been ready to wait as long as she needed to find her, to become her family, but what Ingrid hadn’t been ready for was how much running this home would actually come to mean to her.

She wasn’t ready for how easily these lost children would be able to warm her snowy heart.

She still wants Emma to be her family, but looking at the girl now, and thinking of the children sleeping upstairs, she can admit to herself that the reasons why aren’t the same ones she came to this world with.

“ _So_ I think that’s wonderful, Emma,” she says softly. “But I know he’s had trouble getting to a place where he can do that.”

She looks angry and sad and scared all at once, and it tugs on Ingrid’s melted heart.

“Every time the system moves me someplace new, he moves too, so that we always know where each other are,” she admits quietly, clearly unsure if she should have said as much.

“The homes you’ve been to haven’t let you see each other, have they?”

“No,” she says bitterly. “My social worker says it’ll hurt my chances of finding a family, but _he’s_ my family, and I’m already too old anyway, no one’s gonna want me.”

She clearly says it as a fact, not an attempt at drawing sympathy, and it’s a depressing sentiment Ingrid has heard dozens of times before.

“I’m not going to keep you two apart,” she says, watching Emma’s head snap up with a look of surprise she doesn’t manage to wipe from her face before Ingrid sees it. “And I won’t stop you from running away, if that’s really what you want.”

“You won’t?”

“No,” she says, turning away and lifting her cup back to her mouth. “More cocoa for me.”

Emma stares at her in confusion for a second before slowly heading for the door again.

“I understand it must be difficult to live under the same roof as someone like Kevin, who’s _deathly_ afraid of spiders,” she says, feeling a little mischievous. “ _Any_ spiders really; big ones, little ones, even the rubber ones I keep in my desk for Halloween. In the drawer. On the right. Behind the box of staples.”

Normally she’d feel bad about using something she’d learned about her children against them, but Kevin’s been causing issues with all the kids in the house, and she can’t help thinking this might actually do him a bit of good.

“Poor Kevin,” she says idly, sipping her cocoa.

From the corner of her eye she sees Emma watching her suspiciously, before a small amused smile creeps up her face. The girl accepts the comment for what it is - a peace offering, slowly stepping back from the door again.

Ingrid meets her eyes again, her expression more genuine again. “It’s a shame you can’t stay Emma.”

“Maybe,” Emma says, hesitating as she looks towards the ground for a moment, before meeting her eyes again. “Maybe I could hang around for one more day.”

Ingrid can’t help the smile that immediately steals across her face, but manages to tame it back into something pleasantly neutral, though Emma merely looks reluctantly amused by their conversation.

“Works for me,” Ingrid says. She relishes the small genuine smile Emma offers her before she goes back upstairs.

She knew it would be too soon for the girl to actually accept the cocoa offering, but it seems to have worked out anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm still mad that the show took the only mother figure Emma has ever had before meeting Snow, and made her kinda crazy and also almost kill Emma. Like can y'all JUST GIVE EMMA ONE POSITIVE THING IN HER CHILDHOOD WITHOUT RUINING IT??? Jfc.  
> So YEAH, idk if y'all have gotten it yet, but this whole series is basically my own "fix-it fic" where I change the shit that made me fucking mad in the show lmao. Which includes giving Ingrid a better fucking story, alright?
> 
> I hope you enjoyed! Please feel free to leave a comment, I always reply and they make my week! ^^  
> You can find me on tumblr at [ElvhenWitch](http://www.elvhenwitch.tumblr.com) ♥ and twitter at [Elfbich](https://twitter.com/elfbich)


End file.
